Your Cart is Empty
-
By Food Type
-
By Distinction
Sir Thomas took to the grocery business like a duck to water and one store soon became a chain of stores across Glasgow. One of the products he would sell to his customers was tea and it wasn’t long before he spotted a huge potential in this refreshing brew and bought his first tea plantation in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). He then reorganized it and introduced an innovative cable car system to make transporting leaves more efficient.
What set Sir Thomas apart was that, in an age when tea was a rare and expensive luxury, he believed that anyone, of any class, should be able to enjoy tea at its best.
He established the Thomas J Lipton Co.® tea packaging company in Hoboken, New Jersey and began to look for ways to make packaging and shipping less expensive. Instead of arriving in crates, loose tea was packed in multiple weight options. He also cut out the middleman and was the first to sell loose tea directly to the masses. At last, you didn’t have to be an aristocrat to enjoy a great cup of tea.
Tea bags were accidentally discovered by American merchant, Thomas Sullivan (he sent tea samples to customers in silk bags which they then presumed should be placed in water). Thomas Lipton saw the future, and was the first to start selling tea bags. He was also the first to print brewing instructions on tea bag tags.
